


to curry your favour (and your dinner)

by peaches (crocustongues)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, akira can't sing to save his life, domestic cooking, lots and lots of curry, morgana & ann both show up for a few minutes each!, suspension of disbelief when it comes to him dancing please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 08:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/pseuds/peaches
Summary: a short snippet of Ryuji's love for Akira and his curry, strung together by flavours like red chillies, nutmeg, and terrible, terrible singing





	to curry your favour (and your dinner)

**Author's Note:**

> this one's for pegoryu week day 5 (free day!)

At exactly 6:47 pm, Ryuji locks the storefront and zips the front of his windbreaker to the collar. The chill has a nasty habit of finding its way through his clothes, resulting in perpetually cold hands and feet. It’s a good thing he has Akira, he muses, whose unnaturally warm hands are always ready to hold his own semi-frozen ones.

He makes his way homeward, a tiny spring in his step because Akira had texted him earlier that day, telling him he’d found a new curry recipe online and wanted to try it out for dinner tonight. Ryuji, who adores Akira’s curry, had almost drooled at the memory of curries past—the yellow curry with bay leaves, the super spicy looking orange one that’d made him legitimately tear up, the sweet and sour one with fried pork Akira had made for Ryuji’s birthday last month. 

Ann had made him pinky-promise to send pictures tonight _and_ bring some over to work tomorrow. Ryuji’d had to listen to her complain about how she hadn’t eaten any curry in _so long_ , let alone _Akira’s_ , and Ryuji’d rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, reminding her she’d come over with Shiho for lunch only last weekend, even though he’s secretly glad he’s not the only one who shares a near-unhealthy level of attachment to Akira’s cooking.

Anticipation finds him reaching home a tad earlier than he’d expected. He unlocks the door and is met with the _strangest_ scene fathomable. Here is Akira, singing into his spatula along with the radio to Morgana, who looks absolutely displeased at being sung at, presumably because it interfered with napping and not because Akira is positively _yowling._

Akira’ gaze lands on him, and he doesn’t miss a beat, belting out a final ‘ _never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down_ ’ before grabbing Ryuji’s wrist and pulling him in close to dance with him. One hand at the waist, one on the shoulders, they ‘dance’ (speaking charitably, of course, Morgana has seen them dance before, however, this is _by far_ their least destructive version). Somewhere along the beats, it dwindles into swaying slowly, side-to-side, foreheads touching and breathing each other in.

Ryuji’s just close enough to brush his lips against Akira’s, and he does— they taste like cardamom and cayenne and allspice. He pulls away, just a little, and Akira’s eyes are still closed, Ryuji notes with satisfaction. They stay like that for a while, in each other’s arms, fingers intertwined, until Akira’s eyes shoot wide open and he makes a run for the stove where the curry looks alive with anger, bubbling over in the pan.

Ryuji laughs at him and his attempt at damage control, and Akira shoots back a glare, trying (and succeeding, somehow) to save their dinner, unlike the absolute disaster of an occasion when Akira’d woken up to the smell of smoke and a sleepy-cuddly-Morgana-and-Ryuji pile on the kitchen floor at seven forty-two, forgotten cookies burning to inedible, charcoal-y bits in the oven behind them. 

Ryuji had apologised, of course, and Akira had been more amused than upset, and had kissed Ryuji square on the lips to stop the litany of platitudes that threatened to pour out endlessly. That had taken on a tangential route, then, the dog-eared cooking book and left-over (and oddly _salty_ ) cookie batter forgotten in favour of a different taste—of coffee and a certain pretty mouth.

They sit down now, across from each other, and Ryuji serves them both what Akira grumblingly calls ‘rice hills’—Ryuji maintains that Akira eats too little when he could do well with eating _at least_ twice that— topping it all with the most delectable curry; a mellow embrace of spicy deep orange, bordering on red, and diced chicken, lined with all kinds of leaves—kaffir lime and bay and the titular curry leaf. He takes a quick picture and under Akira’s 60%-self-satisfied-40%-fond gaze, he send it to their friends, ignoring the immediate replies of _that looks AMAZING_ (Haru, bless her heart) and _Ryuji, it’s so not fair you get to eat Akira’s curry whenever you want_ (Futaba, of course) and _can you bring some to work tomorrow, shiho and I want to be blessed_ (as if Akira hadn't already taken that into consideration and made enough to feed his small circle of friends with bottomless stomachs when it came to curry).

The curry itself is, without doubt, the best Ryuji has ever eaten. The first bite sings a symphony of pepper and sour cream, and the next choruses of ginger. Subtle flavours come to him—having been Akira’s Chief Curry Taster in his search for the very best curry like no other before, for so many years—honeyed saffron and sharp cumin. He shuts his eyes and thanks whatever saw fit to place him in this moment, here and now.

“So, I take it you liked it?” Akira says, smile smug as ever, he _knows_ Ryuji is _weak_ to curry (and all of Akira, in general, which includes all by-products of his cooking endeavours). So of course, Ryuji says _yes, yes, of course Akira, what the hell dude, how’d you even come up with something so incredible?_

Akira laughs at that, open and bright, and spoons a mouthful of curry-rice into his mouth, savouring the moment, as the radio in the kitchen croons the lyrics of an old, almost-forgotten love song that Akira tries (and fails, spectacularly at that) to sing along to.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! thank you for reading! if it made you hungry or if you just love the secret dork that akira is, let me know so my validation can fuel more writing & enter to win a chance at eating This Curry (maybe)
> 
> find me on tumblr @roshogollas and on twitter @floralsonnets


End file.
